With Things I Took from My Father, artist Teena Wilder partakes in a durational performance that explores the role of masculinity within the familial unit. When performed, Wilder occupies the exhibition space, standing stationary between two fans while soaked from head to toe in water.  As the audience remains fixed, Teena's skin dries while meditating upon notions of gender shaped by colonialism and anti-Blackness. Their stillness is an act of hyper-visibility, as well as a mechanism for the drying of the physical body. 

 

Things I Took from My Father examines stillness as a source of power, and it is within this prolonged state that Wilder commands the audience's attention and disrupts the traditional viewing experience.  Wilder stands in opposition to the influence on patriarchal figures, and the audience witnesses a reclamation of power.
 

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Teena Wilder is a multidisciplinary artist and writer based in Madison, Wisconsin. Teena was raised in rural Summerton, South Carolina, and received their BFA from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design in New Studio Practice with minors in both Humanities and Art History. Wilder has exhibited and performed locally and nationally, and is the recipient of many honors, including the Ellen Battel Stoeckel Fellowship from Yale University, the McClure-Scanlin Visual Artist Residency Award from Piedmont College, and the Alumni Thesis Award from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. She currently works at the Freedom, Inc.